1962-1963

Soundtracks

Italian cinematography evolves and directors experiment with new solutions. Portmanteau films, film-reports and psychological dramas gain popularity competing for revenues with the great comedy productions. Umiliani, always interested in novelties, writes soundtracks for Monicelli’s episode in “Boccaccio ‘70” (the other episodes are directed by Fellini, Visconti and De Sica) and for the innovative film-reports by Ugo Gregoretti (“I Nuovi Angeli”) (“The New Angels” ) and by Cesare Zavattini (“I Misteri di Roma”). However in this period, Umiliani’s film manifesto is “Smog” directed by Franco Rossi in 1962 and set in Los Angeles. The US, jazz, Chet Baker’s trumpet and Helen Merrill’s voice singing “Dreaming of the Past” are the elements of this extraordinary music puzzle.Umiliani writes the score for “I Piaceri Proibiti” thatranges from swing to rock-and-roll, for “Colpo Gobbo all’Italiana” and also for “L’Amore Difficile” (“Sex Can Be Difficult”), here with the collaboration of trumpet player Nini Rosso.Towards the end of 1963, Umiliani composes the soundtrack for “La Bella di Lodi”, a movie which has been recently rediscovered by critics and where the theme song “A Bocca Chiusa” foreruns lounge music. There are also two docu-films of the new "Mondo Movie” trend: “Mondo Matto al Neon” and “Il Paradiso dell’Uomo”. At the premiere of this last movie at the theatre Barberini in Rome, the LP with the soundtrack is given as a gift to the ladies in the audience. It is a brand new idea supervised by De Laurentis production and RCA which shows the importance of soundtracks in this movie genre, popular until the ’70s.

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